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timing is bad. But she sent me a note. She said, “Alan Alda wants to be sure that I remember him. He can't come, but he wants to be remembered to you.” Alan is out in Snug Harbor making a film, but I'm not going to get started out there.

Anyway, so we had a relationship that was unique and different and that we would use not only for entertainment's sake, but we used it for organizing. For example, I remember that in the early Sixties one of the singing groups that was coming up was the Tarriers. One of the Tarriers is the guy who was the writer for Woody Allen's films, now that he went on his own and made his own films. Marshall Brickman. He was the lead singer and the commentator with the Tarriers. We had rallies at Manhattan Center, the Tarriers came. Henry and I joined with the Tarriers in doing a song that Henry wrote for the occasion about “Albany and Capitol Hill, the legislature passed a bill,” to “Blue-tail Fly.” Another person performing that night was Godfrey Cambridge. So that every opportunity where we'd have a meeting, my strategy was always to lighten the meeting, in some way lighten the meeting with something else and also to heighten that kind of thing.

When Davis came out of jail, we had a big rally at Manhattan Center. Ossie and Ruby came to it just to speak briefly, but to be there, to show that they were with us, and the members to see that they were with us.

You asked a simple question and I gave you a long answer.

I wanted a long answer. There's more to it, also.

You see, we're now creating the basis for what later is to become Bread and Roses.

That's quite clear, but what I'm trying to pin down is, is there a bigger pro-labor current among performers at that time because of the legacy of the left than, say, of now, do you think? Was it a special opportunity in some way?

At that time it would have been easier then than it is now because the labor movement's position is different, although, I digress, but I'll tell you this story on the record. When they were preparing Solidarity Day, I called -- what's his name? -- the secretary-treasurer's office --

Tom Donahue.

-- whom I knew because of Bread and Roses. I asked him, “What are you doing in terms of performance, that kind of thing,